Eternity: The BRWC Review.
David Freyne’s Eternity arrives as a rare blend of fantasy, romance, and existential comedy, weaving together the emotional tenor of a mature love story with the whimsy of an imaginative afterlife. Written by Freyne and Pat Cunnane, the film takes a high-concept premise—one week in the afterlife to choose where and with whom you’ll spend eternity—and turns it into a tender, humorous, and surprisingly grounded meditation on long-term love, the weight of memory, and the possibility of choosing happiness even after life has ended. Anchored by a deeply affecting performance from Elizabeth Olsen and two charm-filled supporting turns by Miles Teller and Callum Turner, Eternity manages to feel warm, witty, and occasionally aching, even as it glides through fantastical terrain.
Freyne constructs an afterlife that never leans on ethereal solemnity. Instead, it’s bureaucratic, gently absurd, and delightfully humane. Deceased individuals are assigned coordinators who walk them through their one-week decision period, guiding them toward the person or the version of the afterlife that suits them best. This is where Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early shine as Anna and Ryan, afterlife guides with impeccable scene-stealing instincts. Randolph’s disarming warmth and Early’s frantic, overly involved enthusiasm give the film a comedic crackle that counterbalances the story’s emotional weight.
Olsen’s Joan enters this system with a lifetime of love behind her and an unresolved love ahead. She must choose between Larry (Miles Teller), her husband of many years, and Luke (Callum Turner), her youthful first love who died in war decades earlier. This premise could easily tilt toward melodrama, but the script treats the emotional stakes with sincerity and humor. Freyne and Cunnane write dialogue that feels lived-in and textured, rich with the kind of unspoken history that accumulates over a lifetime.
What makes Eternity so compelling is Olsen’s softly devastating portrait of a woman caught between two versions of happiness. Joan’s emotional landscape is complex—there is no villain here, no easy choice, no simple assignment of blame or longing. Olsen plays her with a mixture of clarity and confusion, showing a woman who has loved deeply twice and fears the consequences of hurting either man forever.
Her chemistry with both Teller and Turner shines in distinct ways. With Turner’s Luke, there’s a youthful glow—playful glances, familiar teasing, the kind of effortless emotional shorthand that often defines early love. Their scenes together possess a warm nostalgia, the sense of a path cut short but never fully abandoned. Turner plays Luke with a calm, generous presence; he is both who he once was and a slightly idealized memory of that person, lending their dynamic a dreamlike quality.
Teller’s Larry, by contrast, carries the weight of a life shared—mortgages, disappointments, triumphs, private jokes, the mundane miracle of long-term partnership. Teller excels at playing ordinary men with understated emotional truth, and his performance here is no exception. Larry is not perfect, but he is real, and Teller gives him a vulnerability that grounds the entire film. His scenes with Olsen feel layered with decades of affection and frustration, capturing how love evolves over time into something steady, imperfect, but deeply meaningful.
Despite its inherently emotional premise, Eternity is frequently funny. Freyne infuses the afterlife with the same observational humor he brought to his earlier work, and Cunnane’s co-writing adds a sprightly political-comedy rhythm to bureaucratic exchanges. John Early is especially hysterical as Joan’s afterlife coordinator Ryan, whose overly involved approach to guiding her borders on helicopter parenting. His comedic timing injects levity at precisely the right moments, preventing the film from sliding into excessive sentimentality.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s performance offers a softer comedic touch, built on empathy and subtle delivery. She becomes a quiet anchor in the story, often saying more through her expressions than through dialogue. Together, these supporting performances lend the film a tonal balance that makes its shifts into emotional territory feel earned rather than forced.
The film’s structure embraces the idea that emotional clarity does not follow linear rules. Joan moves between Larry and Luke in a series of visits that feel both dreamlike and deeply human. Freyne treats time in the afterlife as fluid, allowing Joan to revisit versions of her life that feel suspended—moments with Luke that reflect what might have been, moments with Larry that reflect what truly was.
The cinematography supports this sense of temporal elasticity. Scenes with Luke carry a hazy, almost mythic glow, while scenes with Larry are lit with a grounded warmth that emphasizes tangible memories rather than idealized fantasies. Freyne’s visual choices subtly bolster the film’s emotional logic: nostalgia is beautiful but hazy, while shared reality is vivid even in its imperfections.
The film’s pacing is gentle yet assured. Some sequences linger a beat longer than expected, inviting viewers to sit with Joan’s indecision. In a lesser film, these pauses might feel indulgent, but here they serve a purpose—they mimic the rhythm of grief, reflection, and the slow unveiling of what truly matters.
Perhaps the film’s most affecting element is its refusal to simplify Joan’s dilemma. Love is not a ledger, nor a contest between equally matched suitors; it is a set of lived experiences that define a life. Freyne refuses to make Joan’s choice binary or moralistic. Instead, he gives her a decision shaped by desire, duty, memory, and the unknowable terrain of the heart.
The film’s most poignant scenes come when Joan confronts the version of herself she was with Luke and the version she became with Larry. Both relationships are presented with deep respect. When the final choice arrives, it feels neither triumphant nor tragic—it feels human.
The ending is touching in a quiet way, offering closure without tying every emotional thread into a neat bow. Freyne allows the film to settle into a space of acceptance, emphasizing that eternity is not about perfection but about peace. The final scenes resonate because they reflect the film’s central belief: love is shaped not just by passion or longevity, but by the moments that define who we are.
Eternity succeeds because it blends whimsy with emotional intelligence, crafting a portrait of love that feels expansive, compassionate, and earnestly funny. Elizabeth Olsen delivers one of her most heartfelt performances, supported by Teller and Turner’s nuanced portrayals. With its inventive world-building, warm humor, and reflective storytelling, the film stands out as one of the more thoughtful romantic comedies in recent years.
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